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Eco-Socialism or Extinction - LA, 6 January

24th Dec, 2018

The Los Angeles Coalition for Peace, Revolution & Social Justice invites you to a panel discussion:

Eco-Socialism or Extinction: Can We Overcome the Existential Threat of Capitalism?

"Before the spark reaches the dynamite, the lighted fuse must be cut."– Walter Benjamin

Sunday, January 6, 2019, 6:00-9:00 p.m.
Westside Peace Center
3916 Sepulveda Blvd., near Venice Blvd.(free parking in rear–reserve spacing not in effect on weekends)
Suite 101-102, press #22 at door to get into building
Culver City (LA area)

From thedevastating wildfiresthat have raged recently in California—coming unusually late in the calendar year, likely due to ongoing drought conditions—to themelting of the polar ice capsand thedeath by overheating of coral reefs—the "rainforests of the oceans"—it is clear that we confront an ecological crisis of vast proportions. It is equally clear that the global dominant class has no solution to these problems of capital-induced global warming and mass-extinction. While Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Mohammed bin Salman, and Jair Bolsonaro shamelessly seek to facilitate the maximum extraction of profit from the working classes and an imperiled Earth, even so-called "progressive Democrats" haveno strategyto mitigate climate change. We forget how much Trump's catastrophic climate-denialism follows from Barack Obama'secocidal legacy.Indeed, several new studies have stressed the likely terminal near-term consequences of climate breakdown: in itsOctober 2018 report,the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes that we have at most 12 years to prevent catastrophic climate breakdown, whereas, in late November, the United Nationsreportedthat the world must triple its efforts to prevent global warming from becoming a self-perpetuating phenomenon.

Amidst the significant obstacles that the environmental crisis poses to human welfare and the integrity of ecosystems, we ask whether we can wield the alternative vision of eco-socialism in time to stave off the destruction of humanity and the biosphere—and, if so, how?

Please join us for this important panel discussion with a number of thoughtful eco-socialists.

Historical Materialism is a Marxist journal, appearing 4 times a year, based in London. Founded in 1997 it asserts that, not withstanding the variety of its practical and theoretical articulations, Marxism constitutes the most fertile conceptual framework for analysing social phenomena, with an eye to their overhaul. In our selection of material we do not favour any one tendency, tradition or variant. Marx demanded the 'Merciless criticism of everything that exists': for us that includes Marxism itself.